I'm watching the 85th Academy Awards as I write.Tonight stop-motion film maker PES, was nominated for an Oscar with, Fresh Guacamole. The film didn't win, but the clip I saw looked familiar. Did some digging and I see that my suspicions were correct. The film was indeed made by the creator of Western Spaghetti.

Adam Horovitz's 1999 MTV speech + Beastie Boys "Song For The Man" LIVE -Adam starts speaking at 2:50.Ad-rock takes the MTV win as an opportunity to speak about the sexual assaults that took place at the 1994 Woodstock Concert.

"......you might say that the Beastie Boy 'Fight For Your Right to
Party' guy is a hypocrite. Well, maybe; but in this fucked up world all
you can hope for is change, and I'd rather be a hypocrite to you than a
zombie forever."
- Adam Horovitz, 1999

I remember sitting at the MTV awards
while Adam made this speech and feeling so fucking proud of him. I also
recall it being totally humid outside and realizing I had my period on
the way there in the car, but that’s another story. This clip is total
punk rock/performance art to me. I mean, getting up at a totally
superficial fake hugs bullshit event like this and being vulnerable and
talking about something REAL is no fucking joke. We left 5 minutes
after this because it was so far beyond the “who farted?” feeling, it
felt like people were gonna kill us.

Hard to believe it was over ten years ago. He is even cuter now if you can believe it.~Kathleen Hanna, of the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. Wife of Adam Horovitz aka Ad-rock, 2010

If the images above seem completely ordinary to you, then Chrysalis Lingerie has done its job.
The first collection from this new NYC label represents something of a
breakthrough in alternative fashions: the perfectly-named Chrysalis is the first lingerie line designed for, and by, transgender women.

For the estimated one million American adults who identify as transgender, this is no small milestone.
“A lot of women have been waiting a long time for something like this,” Chrysalis co-founder Cy Lauz told Lingerie Talk.

“Speaking from personal experience, I found no products that
specifically cater to transgender women. There are some things for
cross-dressers and drag queens, but they’re all sexually exploitative.
“I wanted a product that actually celebrated who we are, something that made us feel beautiful but is also practical.”

Now, for the curious, let’s get to the big question: What exactly distinguishes lingerie for the TG market?Chrysalis will launch this spring with a basics
collection of bra-and-panty ensembles in five colors. The power-mesh
panty is designed to create a seamless look by using a special panel
that “tucks us in,” Cy said, while the bra comes with hidden pockets
that hold full-cup inserts to create the appearance of a natural
bustline.

The result is a product line versatile enough to work with different
body shapes and still achieve traditionally feminine lines. (The models
used in Chrysalis‘ promotional photos are all TG women.)
The brand is also planning a couture collection that will use its
technical innovations in teddies, shapewear, lingerie and even swimwear.

Various studies estimate up to 6% of the adult population identifies
as transgender — people who experience some degree of dysphoria related
to their birth gender, and who frequently choose to live as a member of
the opposite sex. About two-thirds are male-to-female transgenders,
which is the audience that Chrysalis was designed for.

Only a small percentage of transgender women are pursuing sex
reassignment surgery or hormone therapy that can help them develop
natural female curves. As a result, finding appropriate undergarments
can be a challenge, and shopping for underwear in women’s stores also
presents obvious difficulties.

“Chrysalis answers a lot of problems and questions
for transgender women regarding their underwear,” Cy said. “It gives
them peace of mind. You don’t have to think about it anymore.”

Chrysalis Lingerie is the brainchild of Cy, an interior designer and fashion stylist, and partner Simone Tobias, the creative director of a menswear brand. The company got its first public exposure last fall when it was featured in the Style Network documentary, ‘Born Male, Living Female‘.

For its founders, though, Chrysalis is about a lot more than fashion: it’s about the politics of acceptance for a misunderstood and maligned community.

“Chrysalis wants to change how transgender people
are viewed,” Cy said. “We want to make people look at transgender people
as human beings.

“We’re done hiding. We’re done keeping quiet. We are a very diverse community, we do exist, and we have explicit needs.”

Although 16 U.S. states have enacted non-discrimination laws that
specifically protect transgender people, the TG community still faces
widespread discrimination, marginalization and even violence. It is also
one of most widely misunderstood groups in society, burdened by
stereotypes of flamboyant drag queens and viewed as a kind of sexual
deviance. Gender identity disorder is still listed as a mental illness
in psychiatric reference texts.

“One of the the things that’s definite in our lives is your gender,”
Cy said. “When something blurs that line, I can see how other people
would feel threatened by that. It shakes your reality.
“We don’t want to paint a picture of what a transgender woman is
supposed to look like,” she added, “but we do want to change how the
outside community relates to us.

“We all have one common denominator — we’re all still human beings. And we want to be acknowledged for who and what we are.”

A chrysalis, the cocoon stage in the life cycle of a butterfly, is the perfect symbol for what Chrysalis Lingerie is trying to achieve, she said.

“A chrysalis is also a metaphor of transformation,” she said. “But in
order to transition, you need to create a space where you are safe and
loved.”

Because their first collection has a traditional, minimalist look that wouldn’t be out of place on the shelves of Armani or even DKNY, Chrysalis risks being accused of trying to make the TG community appear more “normal” as a way of conforming to societal expectations.

The company knows this, and is highly sensitive to the complex politics of identity in the LGBT world, Cy said. Chrysalis
isn’t pushing a one-size-fits-all vision of TG life, although it is
staying away from explicit fashions that can reinforce stereotypes and
further marginalize transgender women.

“I feel there’s a lot of stuff out there that’s really sexually
explicit in nature,” she said. “We’re just trying to balance the
market.”

And the timing is right for something like Chrysalis, she added. While news events like this weekend’s decision by the Miss Universe Canada
pageant to bar a TG competitor still get the most attention, public
acceptance of gender-variant people is also growing. Portrayals of TG
characters in TV and films is becoming more common, and in 2010 the
Obama administration appointed TG activist Amanda Simpson as an advisor to the Commerce Department.

“The whole world is embracing the fact that humanity comes in
different forms,” Cy said. “Life is so vast and so glorious there has to
be more than two ways of living your life.”

Watch for the first collection from Chrysalis Lingerie to appear on the company website soon. Products will be for sale online and, hopefully, through progressive retail boutiques.

Last week I posted Henry Rollins' 2/7/13 LA Weekly article in which I praise the evolution of his attitudes towards feminism. I mentioned that although Rollins is socio-politically minded, he has carried some heavy duty sexist views in his younger years. To read that post, click here.

I am now posting this week's LA Weekly article in which Rollins addresses the harms of machismo. I find it to be a well crafted piece. To read the article at the LA Weekly site, click here.

Henry Rollins: Football, Violence, and America

A few Sundays back, in a room full of celebratory people, I watched
Alicia Keys sing the national anthem before the start of the Super Bowl.
As she began, the room quickly went quiet out of respect and because of
how well she performed. She was incredible.

As she sang and played piano so beautifully, I could not help but
juxtapose this massive event, attended by more than 75,000 people and
watched by millions more, with the quiet, sad work being done in
preparation for the funerals of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. Both
Navy SEALs were allegedly shot and killed by an ex-Marine at a shooting
range in Texas days before the game.

It is sometimes difficult being an American. We often are tasked with
having to take the very good with the very bad in equal measure and
still keep going. Somehow we do it.

The game is about to start. There will be a lot of very strong men
colliding repeatedly, stunning feats of physical prowess, expensive and
humorous advertisements that you will actually want to watch and a
halftime show that will be talked about for weeks afterwards. All of
this is going to happen while the deaths of two men are grieved.

This is what I was thinking about as I watched wide shots of the
thousands in New Orleans standing as Ms. Keys played. The cameras
briefly cut away to a group of soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan, the image
making "The Star-Spangled Banner" all the more poignant.

In this single instance, you see the history of America. There is
Alicia Keys, the daughter of a biracial couple, singing the lyrics of
Francis Scott Key, a slavery advocate, in easily one of the
highest-profile appearances any performer will ever make. We have come a
long way, and there is a long way to go. Change and progress are not
easy to establish or promote.

In a recent interview, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would not
acknowledge a link between the brain injuries some players suffer and
the playing of football. He danced around the issue, and it's easy to
understand why. Literally thousands of lawsuits have been filed against
the NFL by retired players, many of whom say that information on brain
injury in football was withheld from them.

It is instilled in thousands of American males from an early age that
one of their requirements is to be able to both dish out and take a lot
of pain. They are taught the rules of this road in gyms, rings,
backyards and fields all over America.

This is part of our collective identity. If it were not, the Super
Bowl would not be as popular as it is. This single event encapsulates
and crystallizes the America of America. You have it all. Men in peak
physical condition, highly trained, with a single objective; beautiful
women to cheer them on; and an audience of millions that take all of
this in with an incredible amount of seriousness. An audience that
literally roars with approval when a man is hit so hard his helmet flies
off. Men will limp off the field at either the zenith or nadir of their
lives up to that point. Adults who have no relation to any of the
players will actually cry if they don't get the result they wanted.

"It's just a game" is what you tell children to prepare them for loss
and to promote good sportsmanship. I would not suggest expressing this
point of view to a man wearing face paint in the colors of his favorite
team. Many adults are far too immature to handle the information.

And could such adults be the ones who are holding up the arrival of
the future?! Why, could it be that there are those so deeply invested in
the past that the mere mention of a different way of going about things
sends them into fits? Well, now, we could be onto something. We've
already discussed Commissioner Goodell, who can't handle causality, but
to strengthen the case we'll need more examples. So little time; so
spoiled for choice.

NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre was OK with background
checks at gun shows in 1999. Not so much anymore, however. You can check
his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on
crime from May of that year. It's a quick read -- go for it. Then you
can check his new opinion on the same topic in his horn-lock with Sen.
Patrick Leahy last month. Guns for everybody! No tyranny on his watch.
Hey, all you pistol-packin' mamas and papas, don't get any blood on your
new threads!

At the same hearing, AR-15 pin-up hot thang Gayle Trotter, a mother
of six (Good grief, woman! Do you and your husband ever just talk?),
testified as to the need for all mothers to have some kick-ass
firepower:

"An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman
defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon. And the peace
of mind she has, knowing she has a scary-looking gun, gives her more
courage when she's fighting hardened violent criminals."

She said scary-looking.

Perhaps one of the sadder examples of not wanting to move on would be
Sen. John McCain. You might remember him from his old group, the
Keating Five. Anyway, there are a few things that Mr. M can't handle. He
ran for president and was outshone by his running mate, who was a laugh
riot and a dolt. Ouch. He was beaten by a man, many years his junior,
who will be talked about centuries from now.

Oh, and Mr. McCain was dead wrong about the success of the troop
surge in Iraq. When he recently (and petulantly) tried to corner Chuck
Hagel into a yes or no answer regarding the surge's success, Mr. McCain
only came off as a bitter old man at the end of the line. He won't be
secretary of defense either. You'll have to wrench the validity of the
invasion of Iraq and the push to flatten Iran out of his cold, dead
hands.

So, I took a break from 1940s vintage shopping and landed on something extremely loud and tacky. I purchased these Onitsuka Tiger sneakers by Asics Sakurada at 6pm. I can't say I have ever owned something so bright.

You wouldn't know by looking at this first image that this is an ad for vintage clothing and unless you are familiar with Salvation Mountain, you wouldn't recognize the backdrop either.

This Into the Wild photo shoot is meant to promote Adored Vintage Clothing. I often purchase 1940s vintage clothing from Adored, however, I never thought I'd see yet another "troubled" waif modelling shoot on such sacred ground. Sacred in its history and effort.

The Into the Wild shoot is no doubt named after the film Into the Wild which featured Salvation Mountain.

So what is Salvation Mountain? A place that no doubt was granted permission by its owner. So, in that sense, is it truly such a disgrace? Perhaps not.

Salvation Mountain is located in Imperial County close to the Salton Sea: it is a creation by Leonard Knight. Leonard is an 81 year old man who created this mountain out of his love for God. Travelers who believe and do not believe in God, have stopped to meet Leonard and see his amazing mountain.

Just this past year, Leonard has had some problems that come along with age. He's doing well, and the mountain continues to be maintained.

Although I feel that the model and the art don't go together, I imagine it will help fund the upkeep of the masterpiece.

About Me

I believe story telling is an art form and blogging is a medium in which to share stories and ideas. Within this blog I hope to cover a spectrum of topics. From the serious to the silly. Here you will read my views and inquiries about subjects such as feminism, other various socio-political issues, psychology, spirituality, sexuality, and general interests such as film, art and music. You will also be exposed to my obsession with cupcakes, tea, books, Hello Kitty, and quirky day to day journeys. I enjoy learning from others as I am constantly attempting to introspect, grow and evolve. During this process I will be jotting down musings on this blog. Pull up a comfy chair and a spot of tea and join me!